Can someone care to explain what exactly is happening to the scientific funding in US? Does it mean that only NIH institutes are affected by the cuts or would it affect alot of other non-NIH research facilities?

Is it still a good idea to undertake post-PhD training or even start-up a lab in US considering the recent news?

This is a brief communication to update the biomedical research community of the current status of extramural operations at NIH. The NIH continues to be shut down for all non-excepted activities. This means that the vast majority of NIH staff that oversee program, review, and grants management are furloughed, NIH grants and contract submissions are not being processed, reviews are not occurring, and no awards are being made. As described in NOT-OD-13-126, the Payment Management Systems remains operational and funds for most grants awarded before the shutdown can continue to be drawn down.

As the shutdown drags on, the challenge of reestablishing normal operations quickly is growing. Once the shutdown is over, NIH will need time to set new dates for grant and contract submissions, review meetings, conferences, and other activities that were scheduled to happen during and immediately following the period of the shutdown. It will take us a few days after this is over to communicate our plans, so please bear with us.

You can find the current guidance posted at grants.nih.gov. Once we reopen, additional information will be posted and published in the NIH Guide as quickly as we can make it available.

All of us at NIH hope the current situation is resolved soon, but we don’t know when that will be.